 Nigeria now it most terrorized country globally terrorism index reports and El Rufai PDP in a fight to finish in Kaduna as four candidates join in the hot race to succeed them. This is Plus Politics my name is Nyam Gull at Gaiju. Nigeria has been ranked the eighth most terrorized country globally in 2022 dropping from its sixth position in 2021. According to the 2023 global terrorism index released recently terrorist activities in the country had fallen to its lowest since 2011. Between 2017 and 2020 Nigeria ranked fourth most terrorized in the world and in 2016-2015 it ranked second. The insurgency of Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa province has led to the death of thousands of Nigerians in the North East region since 2009 but the groups were more restrained in 2022. The report noted that deaths in Nigeria picked in 2014 at 2,101 deaths before declining in five of the subsequent nine years. Death linked to terrorism in Nigeria dropped from 497 in 2021 to 385 in 2022 and number of terrorist attacks also dropped from 214 in 2021 to 120 rather the lowest recorded since 2011. Joining us live to discuss this is Augustin Ega a security expert. Thanks for joining us Augustin. It's my pleasure Nyam Gull. Okay the terrorism index is a global thing and my first question is is it necessarily the way it has been projected by the international community that we are now ranked eighth in the world. Would you say that assessment is fair? It's very fair because one of the factors that was contributing to the high terrorism activities in the North East it was the Libya issue you know Libya also had a problem with terrorist attacks and they were in the state of war and we see that right now Libya is already declining from this war they are trying to make up peace and form a new government and from this point Buhari on his own when he came in he did a lot by harnessing the collaboration of the West African countries within that region and even Ghana and all these equalized nations they all contributed to helping fight this insurgency and from country-wise there have been a lot of achievement from the military you can see a lot of them are surrendering a lot of them have surrendered to the military some have been rehabilitated I think some are doing things for themselves and I think this is actually helping this have also scored the Nigeria the factor of terrorism to really decline from six to eight positions actually we are doing enough okay what are the parameters that were used to arrive at this figure some of the parameters is the their achievement from the government you see the check they check from the consistent bombing like we used to the target of terrorism is to have mass casualties that is their targets and if we check from that time now that kind of mass casualties that we used to have 200 and something she bought girls taken about 100 kills 600 or this is kind of high numbers are reduced and this and of course they see that the Nigerian government even if we look at it from other aspect it's a bit and I think that the major the progress of the Nigerian economy from the inside the check all these parameters to see that it is actually working the strength of the media is also considered the preparedness of the military is also considered and I think this is actually helping to really reach Nigeria better in dealing with the global terrorism well I do not know if we should really be clapping for ourselves at this time because terrorism as they mentioned here has taken a number of lives that they the figures were given but I don't seem to see a connection between terrorism and banditry and so many other things that are making our people lose their lives as well because when you hear about the head of clashes farmer head of clashes for instance I'm not sure that was factored in as terrorism because we're still seeing people dying on a daily basis and if you add up the numbers all the figures that were given there as results of terrorism would be a child's play so when you're talking about about terrorism and the fact that we are now number eight will we be safe to say Nigeria is safer now than it was before just because there are no mass casualties that terrorism that is a characteristic of terrorism or can we say that if we look at other security concerns we have not even advanced to anywhere I think let me add a point to what I say apart from the mass casualties you know these people are funded they are funded to carry out the operations and including getting of getting arms to fight they buy arms from these foreign nations to fight so it could also be from their own rating that the number at which they are unable to purchase this arm is also considered because if they're able to get these arms freely from those nations definitely they will still have mass casualties but they also tractive that they supply of arms to Nigeria definitely have reduced and when we talk of terrorism it was not that it has two aspects the outside and the inside we have the international have domestic so when you talk about boundary tree and the headsband is still an aspect of terrorism but is more domestic and like boundary tree is when most of them have been most of them who have deliberately or decide to leave terrorism they don't fight the means of livelihood some of them get involved in boundary tree and keep mapping or if they don't get funding from where they expect to get their funding and of course they are in different hideouts they resolve to they resolve to get in a way of funding the operations by getting into this boundary tree and kidnapping just to fund the operations and this is the this is the relationship but internationally tracking is done from the arms purchase because they know they keep numbers of a lot of arms being purchased from these nations to Nigeria right from time they have been monitoring when when terrorism was very high in Nigeria they keep track of every gun every ammunition they buy but now they see that that has dropped and of course the casualties a little bit I think it has dropped we cannot clavance for ourselves yet because we don't have a full system secure system that we really want that nobody should die but I think to some extent at least we need to encourage the government and the forces that actually they are doing their best they are trying so that at least they can put more effort to do better in most times when we are talking about proffering solutions to something we first of all try to look at what gave rise in the first place to these problems so in your view what were some of these things that made our society our country to be so prone to violence to to be prone to terrorism and all the things that are happening here in the security space what are some of these failures of whether government or the people that made it possible for terrorism to soar in our country so that we can start looking at how to prevent them definitely yamgul is a bad leadership and terrorism like I say it's sometimes they hide it on that religious religious beliefs but it's actually not religion it is actually a political movement on sorts and they believe that when they get this political power definitely will get the economic power and everything stemmed down to leadership leadership I think the people at the grassroots are not really feeling the leadership from the top and we pray that as we are transferred to another new government the leaders will actually ensure that the people at the lowest level experience good leadership this is what they are people everybody want to be successful and from the principle of terrorism is that when certain people cannot really gain success the way society I expect them they carve out themselves out of the society entirely and form a new government for themselves that's the end of that's how terrorism is formed that's such that they are totally out of the system they believe they cannot succeed under the current systems so they have to form their own government inside another government that is just the idea about terrorism so we believe that to prevent this if the government can take consideration of every individual in the society and at least ensure that we enjoy good governance from the lowest there should be food there should be good health care there should be at least schools for leading children to go I'm sure this all will cop terrorism so that's what we are praying for that this will help if they can look at it from this angle at least some little welfare welfare for the people at the lowest level I'm sure that this thing will not even come because imagine a boy of 16 or 18 years or 10 years he's into a terrorist group what is he doing then probably to just have a one square meal for himself you feel a little bit confident that they will provide for him they will care for him so one of it we discourage this by providing for these children I'm sure that they will not even have the recruits that will we will fund the terrorism okay well apart from the good governance that we are advocating that everybody that comes into power should do the needful for the people what are specific policies that the government needs to look at to be able to fight this security concerns let me not limited to terrorism whether external or internal terrorism but all the security concerns concerns what are specific policies that government can look out to make stronger or to bring about in the next government that is coming yeah I think one of the best things where the government can do is like you can see from from the selection of our leaders those who who come into politics they are not well-profiled in a country where we just believe you have the money then you are good to go you are able to purchase a form for the amount that they need and then you are ready a politician you are up there in the in the in the upper house trying to make laws for people some of them just go there and hide themselves they are actually not a good image for Nigeria but we'll find them as lawmakers and so I think from from the political parties or from the government aspect the people who are really contesting for these positions they should be first of all be profiled they should be profiled and show that they don't have any criminal background or they have they have a good track record because terrorism cannot be funded by common people the people that have the means to fund them and so if we prevent these people from coming into politics coming into politics and occupying the position of trust from the onset I'm sure that there will be no room for this so let there be a good policy to do background check on these people and ensure that it is very strict it's very rigid and such that the political parties should be checked on who they they bring as their candidates this is very important for us going forward okay this role is for the government to formulate policies that will make sure that the people are profiled and we make the right choice so that the person who is governing us doesn't have baggage is coming with with them but what about the people themselves apart from selecting who should rule them what can we do to prevent our society into degenerating into a place that will be ranked so high in the security index I think what we should do as a people is that we should understand that there are channels or there are channels to channel your grievances there are channels we should follow in order to make our mind known what we feel that is not appropriate for us or what we are not getting and a mindset of violence is not always the best thing for us for instance you see where Nigeria was and what where Nigeria is today we should have been far beyond where we are there should be some kind of our agitations should be should be modest because some people are too desperate some human beings like oh we are desperate and so when they get this desperation guessing there they don't mind doing anything to get to where they are so at least they should try every individual should try to become very modest in their kind of agitations always remember that whatever action that you take will that there's a consequence for your actions is it a positive or negative the words you speak and the actions you take will either keep people together or divide them so let us be mindful that Nigeria is not one month's business is all of us are make Nigeria work okay but Saturday is coming and there are also security concerns everybody wants to go and vote if there were mistakes in the presidential and national assembly elections those mistakes seem to be to be having how do I even put it it seems the mistakes may go away in the governorship election but one thing that may not go away is the concern of people that the security will not be good enough if you must talk to the security architecture in the country what will be your advice to them as we go into this election and what will be your advice to the people let's start with the security agencies what can you advise they need to do to make sure that the election is violence-free and it's safe for the people that will come and vote okay let's align from the presidential election from the environmental scanning I made is that they should be aware that it's a call to national duty and that from the beginning of the commencement of the election to the final state of it the security should be visible the men that are posted on all these sides should be visible because from the beginning those who are there to prevent trouble or to snatch ballot boxes and to commit certain crimes like buying boots and all that they are always there at the early stage but you see them not getting engaged at that moment because that's not the moment for them and they'll be able to see those people who take a lot of time standing and standing they are not party agents but they are just there some will state you 12 they are still there on team maybe it was the close of business of the day you see them they want to vote and then from there they want to snag for those ballot boxes and create a competition I think the security that will be posted they got the lawyer enforcement that we posted to every pooling unit should be very vigilant and ensure that the people the other people are well protected because some of them are like what we had last time they were they were threats to their life and I can believe that they were not there they should know how to cover this because they are really carrying out a very important assignment for the nation they should be properly guided they should be god they should guard them properly but when in some station like you said that you don't see them if you don't see them definitely if you want to commit crime will do it but when they see the presence of the police around that unit there will be some fear that okay this will could arrest them or they could be a repressor and that's the word I have for them they should not engage in collecting a kind of because they have a very high level of integrity to protect in these elections if the if the law enforcement or the law enforcement will really lower their guard I'm sure that all kind of anomalies can happen but I believe they are up with their game with integrity of heart I'm sure that the best candidate that people voted for will emerge as a winner in that unit yeah but the manpower in the police is very small maybe 400,000 to to a more than 200 million people even though not all of them will be going out to vote but at least we're expecting that about 80 80 million will go out to vote even if they don't go out to vote all of them but the crowd to be taken care of by these people is overwhelming what else can be done as alternatives to make sure that the people feel the presence of security operatives and then that fear remains in them so that they don't foment any trouble going by last presidential experience what I what I observed for myself was that they had this joint operations joint operations such that there are other formations from the law from EFCC I saw who from EFCC I saw civil defense I saw even somewhere the DSS somewhere not really putting on their uniforms I think there was this coordination that even if they have someone stationed in one unit they still had this patrol going on to check to see that everything is normal in every location if they carry out from what I observed where I voted this is what I saw and I'm so it really helped that because there was no violence in the area that we voted the results where came out properly no injuries no reports of barlow snatching and everything went well so I think that same kind of intelligence led policing will help where they have somebody on standby they see have a team that will go rigorously all the time to check other units faring hard they're faring so that if there's any issue coming up at that moment they can give a backup or call for a backup we really need this to keep people safe and so that people will be willing to go and vote that we have you here I know that we were talking about the national security we're talking about the elections and all that but I have you here I have to eat my food and lick my plate really well okay so another area of concern we have in security matters is in around our schools it seems like we're not doing enough to protect our children in the schools and all that what do we need to do to keep our schools safe whether tertiary or secondary or even primary schools yes it's a very big issue not only in Nigeria and across other nations this active shooter is a word they call these the words this kind of attacker we call them active shooter but apart from that is the situation in outside Nigeria but what we have here is some kind of violence against our children and we've had reports of some of them losing their life I have gone to some schools and I've seen that they don't take security serious and some of the people that they have as their security some are not trained they don't even want to get the private guard companies some schools don't have private guard companies that are trained so that they can hold them accountable they just get some guys and then give them some uniforms and they sit on the access control that's all they know but I think if they really engage the services of registered or licensed private guard companies in Nigeria and hold them accountable to good training this will create some kind of deterrents in the environment secondly the principals should take things very serious because I've been to some school they just tell me that you see I have CCTV I've been to a principal who told me come and see the CCTV I have CCTV I can see anything happening around the whole compound but the security goes beyond just seeing what is happening in camera it also goes a long way to get intelligence of how these children communicate there are sexual violence that is happening there is there are some people who are into drugs as small as those children are small them are into drugs abuse there's also sexual violence then there's some other sort of violent acts that is happening against them so the teachers should not look beyond they should look beyond just seeing that okay the last case of violence maybe two people are fighting is reported to them there are other things that need to be monitored they are conducts so I think the teachers need to be trained the principal themselves need to be aware that they have a duty of care to protect these children in school and so they should engage security and ensure that receive training all the need is training so that they'll be aware of those kind of areas from each level to another there's a certain trend that will need or they come with their challenges they crutch the nursery the primary the secondary and up to the tertiary they have different kind of security situations the face in the tertiary they have this campus called courtism in the campuses and of course there should that there's another level of security that need to maintain their own checks their own monitoring and ensure that they they they deter them from hurting the system in the secondary school they also have their own concerns sexual violence drug abuse and even courtism recruitment of court boys so that from that they graduate to the university they need to discourage them there should be some campaigns there should be some orientation on this level teaching these children the right thing some of them don't even have their parents there to really look after them or check them see how they are doing so this constant should be tailed down even up to the nursery schools so that we can have a very safe school for our children okay well thank you very much Augustine Ega for being a part of this program and telling us the things that we need to do we would like to wish you well and hope that you too will stay safe for Saturday's election and help to mobilize the people around you for the election thank you so much for being a part of our program today thank you thank you my pleasure okay we've been talking with Augustine a guy security expert and when we return from this break that we're about to go on we'll be discussing the governorship polls in Kaduna state stay with us